Browsing by Subject "Manhood"
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Item Black Cowboys and Black Masculinity African American Ranchers, Rodeo Cowboys and Trailriders(2014-12-17) Babers, Myeshia ChanelIn this ethnographic study I use queer theory to consider how black cowboys interact with each other to produce counter or micro-narratives about Black male pathologies and socialization in multiple masculinities. Queer theory provides a model to analyze the socialcultural significance of considering the intersection of race and gender as constructed binaries without focusing on sexuality. The lack of information about Black cowboys from other disciplines creates a peculiar position regarding notions, representations, and understandings about the racially signified cowboys in three ways. First, Black cowboys? relegation to the past leaves contemporary Black cowboys nearly invisible. Second, dominant narratives about notable Black cowboys are written from a particular historical perspective. This perspective suggests that Black cowboys are a ?thing of the past? and extinct figures in American society who were largely absent in the American west except as they proved to possess exceptional ?cowboying? abilities. Finally, Black cowboys? roles and positionality within American history and sport, via rodeo, performs a limited function towards inserting and increasing awareness of alternative representations of (Black) cowboys and their masculinities in the contemporary moment.Item Consuming and performing Black manhood : the Post Hip-Hop Generation and the consumption of popular media and cultural products(2011-12) Williams, Adam Clark; Watkins, S. Craig (Samuel Craig); Moore, Leonard N.Thirty-three young Black men of the Post-Hip Hop Generation (ages 18-25) in Austin, TX, participated in a qualitative study centering on questions investigating Black manhood, media use, and the consumption of popular cultural products. Further, the researcher examined representations of Black men throughout music videos, films, and MySpace profiles. The purpose of this study was to enhance our knowledge about how Black manhood is being defined, conceptualized, and expressed by young Black men, and how significant media and cultural consumption plays a role in their lives. This study probes six questions: RQ1: How do young Black males interpret the images and messages about Black men from mainstream media? RQ2: What types of cultural products are being consumed by young Black men? Why do they consume them? RQ3: How do young Black males define Black manhood? RQ4: Do these cultural products influence the ways that young Black men define/express Black manhood? If so, how? Focus group sessions were conducted throughout the study, which were video recorded and transcribed. Transcriptions were then imported into a qualitative software program known as Atlas.ti, where statements related to the purpose of the study were coded and analyzed. These coded statements were then compared to observations made by the researcher from the examined media representations.Item Consuming manhood : consumer culture and the identity projects of black and white millennial males(2011-05) Thomas, Kevin Devon; Henderson, Geraldine R. (Geraldine Rosa), 1963-This study qualitatively examines the synergetic relationship between marketing communication, identity formation, and consumer behavior within the context of black and white males of the Millennial Generation. The sample consisted of 20 males between the ages of 18-29; ten self-identified as black and 10 self-identified as white. This project expands the knowledge base of consumption/identity research by incorporating intersectionality into the present body of consumer behavior work. A consumer’s identity project is far more complex than what is represented by current consumer behavior scholarship. Consumers must navigate multiple sites of identification that constantly shift in importance and involvement. To more closely reflect consumers in the flesh, this study incorporated multiple sites of identity projects into the analysis. By taking a more “true-to-life” approach to consumption/identity research, this project unearths new knowledge that is proximate to the lived experience of consumers. Consumer culture theory (CCT), a division of consumer research that moves the discussion of consumption behavior deep into the realm of cultural impact was used as the conceptual focus of this project. Autodriving was utilized to collect data. This form of photo elicitation involves the use of informants taking photos of a particular phenomenon and then “driving” the interview by discussing the photos they have taken. In the context of this study, informants were furnished a disposal camera and asked to photographically document representations of the following: achievement & success, morality, humanitarianism, nationalism, and freedom. Informants were strongly encouraged to also visually document anything that did not fit into the abovementioned categories but represented something they found particularly interesting or offensive. To examine the impact of marketing communication on the informants’ identity projects, print advertisements featuring different configurations of masculinity and manhood were explored. Three key themes emerged from the data. All informants used the marketplace to express values. The concept of identity elasticity was developed to explain the significant difference in identity potentiality between white and black informants. Many white and black informants shared the perception that they live in a post-racial society. However, the experience of a post-racial society was highly divergent based on racial formation.Item Mothering a nation : the gendered memory of Kenya’s Mau Mau rebellion(2015-05) Murimi, Wanjira; Richardson, Matt, 1969-; Livermon, XavierThis paper approaches fiction as a site of gendered history and memory and presents two pieces of literature by Kenyan authors - Passbook Number F.47927 by Muthoni Likimani and The Trial of Dedan Kimathi by Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o and Micere Githae Mugo - as examples of countermemory production that disrupt dominant and colonially and post-colonially perpetuated narratives of Kenya's fight for independence within the context of the Mau Mau uprisings. I assert that historical fiction can be a medium of challenge and disruption of hegemonically formed reports of history, reweaving into the tapestry of national memory voices forgotten or excised. I posit that this contestation of history and memory through countermemory can be an ethical and feminist project. However, countermemory, much like the history and memory it challenges, does not exist in a vacuum, and is subject to structures of power that may result in its being participant and enacting of oppressive power. Using gender as a lens, I elucidate the ways in which both these pieces participate in and challenge heteropatriarchal notions of manhood and womanhood as resistance strategies for nation building.